


A Midnight Clear

by Quire



Category: The Losers (2010)
Genre: M/M, Trading Losers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-22
Updated: 2018-01-22
Packaged: 2019-03-08 04:33:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13450629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quire/pseuds/Quire
Summary: Jensen doesn't seem to realise he's a problem.That's what the problem really is.





	A Midnight Clear

**Author's Note:**

  * For [psandqs](https://archiveofourown.org/users/psandqs/gifts).



> So hi, I've been lurking in this fandom for a little while now. Thought I might put my toes in the water.

"We've had Christmas Eve in weirder places than this," Jensen says, and rolls over in his sleeping bag to elbow Pooch. "Haven't we? We've definitely had weirder Christmas Eves."

"Shut up," Pooch says, and pulls his blanket up over his head.

"There was that one in Bangkok," Jensen continues, undaunted. Cougar half-turns his head so he can keep them all in his gaze without losing line of sight on the avenues of approach. Jensen's hair is fluffier than usual and his glasses are smudged; the firelight reflections off them are fuzzy. Outside the mouth of the cave, it's raining, and raining hard. Water splatters over the rocks, crashes against the stone outside, and forms a rushing inch-deep river just there by Cougar's boots. 

"It was sweaty," Jensen says, shuffling in his sleeping bag the other way, so that his words come muffled to Cougar at the mouth of the cave. "Christmas shouldn't be sweaty. That just seems so unfair."

"Shut up, Jensen," Roque says. 

Cougar is pretty sure Clay is pretending to be asleep, but he's not pretending very well; Cougar can see the light glinting from his half-closed eyes. 

"Almost as unfair as stuck in a cave with you smelly assholes." Jensen yawns, and Cougar turns his head back to look outside; he can picture it, the way Jensen's back arches when he stretches, the muscle shifting beneath golden skin, Jensen's eyes half-closed. He doesn't need to look.

"You're the smelly asshole here," Pooch grumbles, from beneath his blanket. "Mister Wah Wah Gotta Keep The Computers Dry. At least the rest of us all got a wash."

This is not true; Jensen protected the computers, sure, those stayed dry, but he'd done it by wrapping his rucksack in his rain gear instead of wearing it. They'd all been soaked, and Jensen's shirt had clung to the small of his back, slick over his chest, while the rest of them were shapeless lumps in rain gear. Cougar's hair is still cold and wet against his neck, but his BDUs are dry, and Jensen is still wet.

Jensen huffs into silence, outraged by the falsehood, maybe, or just sick of the sound of his own voice. If Jensen ever gets sick of that. 

Cougar doesn't.

Pooch shuffles again, and Clay's breath evens out after a moment or two until he's quiet again, probably closer to sleep than before. If Clay ever really slept, anyway.

Cougar gives them a few minutes to settle. Then he glances back again, and catches Jensen's eye by accident.

Jensen winks at him, and Cougar feels his lips twitch into an answering smile without his brain offering any input. He tips his hat a little - just a fraction. Jensen's smile widens and he slips back down in his sleeping bag, and after a moment, he closes his eyes.

Cougar returns his eyes to the rain and the cave mouth. 

*

The problem is this: Carlos Alvarez very much wants to not get kicked out of the military. 

He has a sister to put through college who would kill him - possibly literally - if he was stupid enough to let his dick lead him into the kind of trouble that scuppered her future plans. 

He has a reputation of his own to uphold. He spent far too long getting good at shooting things to want to throw it away now. Besides, what would he even do, if he was sent away? He's no good at anything else. Shooting things very far away, that's about it.

And he has a voice in the back of his head, sometimes, his Abuela's voice, reminding him that to sin in your thoughts is unavoidable, sometimes, and God forgives, but to act on your sinful thoughts ... that is less forgiveable. 

Those are three very good reasons that Jake Jensen and his smiles and his broad shoulders and pink mouth are a Problem. Well - two good reasons, and one reason that's just kind of a backup reason. Carlos has seen war, and he's pretty sure that if hell exists, it can't be worse than that. So maybe cancel the third problem. Abuela would understand, if she was alive to meet Jensen.

Jensen, however, doesn't seem to realise he's a problem. 

That's the _real_ problem here.

Jensen smiles at him, sometimes, these slow, warm smiles that make Carlos's gut twist with want. Jensen sleeps like a teenager, sprawled out and taking up as much space as he possibly can, with his neck soft and vulnerable and right there, and Carlos has taken to sleeping as far away from Jensen as he can, for fear he would roll right into those outflung arms in the night. Jensen is six feet even of golden skin and sinuous muscle, and some days all Carlos can think about is how soft Jensen's lips look. Jensen has enormous hands that dance over cables and keyboards and wires without hesitation, and Carlos has ... Carlos has some very inappropriate fantasies about Jensen's capable hands.

Jensen is a Problem with a capital P. For all of the above reasons.

Carlos has to make sure Jensen never meets that sister, Maria, because she'd only have to take one look at Carlos's eyes to see far, far too much.

*

"When I was a kid, we used to get up early on Christmas to open goddamn presents," Pooch grouses, "not to trek out into the mud and filth and jungle for the fourth day running in wet fucking boots." 

"Times change, Pooch." Clay shoulders his rifle wearily. "You can have Christmas off next year."

"Bullshit," Roque says, and Pooch shrugs, strapping up his boots wearily. They all know there's no way Clay can promise that.

"You're quiet there, Jensen. What's the matter, no Christmas memories to share?" Clay says. 

Jensen glances up from where he's looking at his boots, and Cougar watches him for a moment, and frowns. 

"Pan dulce," he says, because Jensen seems lost for words and Clay isn't the sort to be sensitive about when a man wants to talk or not. The novelty that is Cougar using his words has everyone looking at him as if he had said something deeply profound, and he fights the urge to roll his eyes. Okay, so maybe he's not immune to the grumpiness that seems to have overtaken everyone, then. "My sister used to bake pan dulce for Christmas." He shrugs, shouldering his pack, and tips his head at the cave mouth and the muddy, filthy trek that awaits them. Feliz Navidad indeed. 

"Hell is pan dulce?" Roque demands, and Cougar smirks a little, doesn't bother to answer. Roque's got the same access to Google as all the rest of them. 

Jensen falls in in front of Cougar when they set off and Cougar gets to stare at his ass for thirty miles of sweaty jungle.

It's not the worst Christmas ever. 

*

"Hey," Jensen says, soft and quiet and right in Cougar's ear, hooking Cougar out of sleep as swift and clean as a fish being yanked from a creek. 

He glares up at Jensen through narrowed eyes. It's the middle of Jensen's watch, the middle of the night, and they're on a muddy outcropping in the jungle with even less shelter than the damn cave, and Carlos barely got to sleep in the first place.

Jensen looks unrepentant, just grins at him with that slightly manic look he gets sometimes. "C'mere. Hurry, I'm supposed to be on watch, but you gotta see this." 

Cougar closes his eyes pointedly. He has sleeping to do. 

"No, c'mon, seriously, Cougs, move your ass." 

Cougar does not.

"Cooooooooougs." 

Cougar glares up at him and the man grins, like an asshole, his eyes crinkling with amusement behind his stupid glasses.

"You're right, I'm not going to go away until I get my way," he says, and Cougar detects a tone of smugness. Jensen thinks he's already won.

Asshole.

Asshole who's correct.

Cougar huffs and rolls out of bed, and Jensen beams like he just won a prize. "Sweet. Sweetest. My silent friend, you have just won yourself a ticket to the prize of a lifetime. Get your boots on."

Cougar slept in his boots. They're on mission. He hates to be caught unawares. He glances at them pointedly and then folds his arms at Jensen - who just grins, reaches for Cougar's hat, and tosses it back down on Cougar's bed roll instead of giving it to him.

Cougar is glad the others didn't see that. He is not in the habit of letting anyone mess with his hat.

... anyone else, anyway. He leaves the hat where it is and follows.

Jensen is already walking away, out of their shelter, back to his lookout point. The drizzling rain is clear for the moment and a swathe of the sky is clear and bright, black velvet shot through with silver stars. They're far enough out of the cities that the entire Milky Way lies overhead like a vast river of dreams, curling its way across the sky; it's beautiful. 

And alive. First one catches his eye, then another: streaks of light, silver flashing across the night. High high above them, far far away, the sky is alive with dancing points of light. Tiny impacts in the upper atmosphere, burning out their brief lives in a brilliant silver flash, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of them.

"It's a meteor shower," Jensen murmurs, and Cougar only barely prevents himself from jumping with surprise at the warm breath against his ear. "Earth hit some space debris, or maybe the other way round, you know, we're all travelling at a million billion miles per hour anyway, who's to say who hit what?"

It's a meteor shower, and it's maybe the most incredible thing Carlos has ever seen. It makes him feel tiny, impossibly small; Earth is so big and these flashes of light are so far away that for a moment he has a real sense of their own smallness, the pettiness of their war, of his worries, of his ideas of sin and heaven and hell. None of it is anything at all. Not compared to this, the wildness of standing in the middle of nowhere, watching hundreds and hundreds of meteors burn themselves out in the sky.

"Told you it was worth getting up for." Jensen's hand nudges his, a warm presence at his side in the night. "Still mad?"

Cougar looks up at the sky again, feeling a hunger for something indefinable, something impossible. It's so incredible that he can't think of the English words for it, can't even think of the Spanish. But no ... no, he's not still mad, and he nudges Jensen's shoulder with his, a little bit, to tell him. 

This was definitely worth losing a little sleep. 

Jensen is grinning, there by his side. Carlos can feel it. He doesn't look at him, though. 

"Yeah, I didn't think so. Shit, this almost makes me want to pray, and you know I'm not the praying type. Except to the porcelain god. You know, after you drink too much and - ugh, never mind, I've never seen you drink too much, you're always in control."

Cougar knows what 'praying to the porcelain god' means, thank you. And Jensen definitely has seen him drink too much - it's just that Jensen tends not to remember those nights in the morning, and besides, Cougar's not a messy drunk, he just gets quieter, and sometimes hits on girls he doesn't care about.

He knows what Jensen means, though. It does make him want to pray.

That's just ... not something he can do when Jensen's standing close enough to him that Cougar can feel his body heat radiating across the gap. Not when Cougar's thoughts are swirling around another man. Not even a meteor shower could make him want to look for a God in Heaven. He'd rather go to his knees to worship something much, much closer.

"Aw, no, the rain's coming back." Jensen sighs heavily and claps a hand on Cougar's shoulder, gazing up at the sky; Cougar takes the opportunity to look at him for a moment, and then looks away quickly, back up to the sky himself. Looking at Jake too close is dangerous right now. Like looking at the sun. 

The clouds are moving fast, and it doesn't take long for that open swathe to disappear, heavy cloud filling in the gaps and covering the sparkling diamond sky. Cougar watches till the last sliver disappears and when it's gone he only reluctantly brings his attention back to earth.

Jensen's still grinning, pleased with himself. "You can go back to sleep now, my man. Just didn't want you to miss this."

Cougar looks at him, thoughtful. Jensen didn't wake anyone else.

"Oh shit no. Are you kidding me? You think Roque would thank me for losing him half an hour's sleep? And the Pooch gets downright dirty mean when you wake him up. And Clay. No. Just no." 

Cougar smirks a little and lifts one shoulder in a shrug. It's true.

"Just you, Cougs."

There's a look in Jensen's eyes that's unusual. Cougar looks at him, and takes a breath, and turns to go back to his sleeping bag, because there is nothing inside him that knows what to do with what Jensen might be - probably isn't - but could be - offering him, there.

The ground spludges wetly beneath his boots as he ducks back into their makeshift shelter, and he can hear Jensen following him back. He drops to his sleeping bag, stretches out on his back, and looks up at his friend.

Maybe they'll talk later. Maybe once the stars are done burning themselves out. Maybe once Christmas is over, when God's looking the other way. 

Maybe never.

Maybe right now -- 

 

Pooch rolls over in his sleep and blinks himself awake, and whatever Cougar might have said to Jensen, it vanishes like a dream, slipping out of hand and out of memory in seconds. 

"Am I on watch?" Pooch asks, voice muffled with sleep, and Jensen laughs, bright and cheerful as if nothing happened at all.

"You sure are, Poochy. Merry Christmas!"

"Merry fucking Christmas, right," Pooch mutters, hauling himself to his feet, and Cougar closes his eyes and retreats into sleep, ignoring the noises of Jensen shuffling things around until he can stretch out on his sleeping bag, right beside Cougar. Ignoring the sound of his breathing, ignoring that warmth of a person right there.

Ignoring --

He opens his eyes and finds Jensen looking at him again, while Pooch kicks dirt aside on his way out of the tent.

"Go to sleep," Cougar says, but he reaches out to put his hand over Jensen's for a moment, and the tension eases out of Jensen's eyes.

"Yeah. Yeah, okay, Cougs. Talk later, yeah?"

Cougar is still for a moment and then he sighs very softly, smiles just a little, shrugs, helpless. Yeah. They will. Soon as this bullshit jungle mission is over. Bolivia is a terrible place to spend Christmas.

**Author's Note:**

> [i've got a tumblr now i guess](https://in-quires.tumblr.com/)!?


End file.
